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CNN Live Saturday
Can Too Much Self-Esteem Harm Children?
Aired September 01, 2001 - 12:16 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Having high self-esteem can be good thing, but for children some folks think that too much self-esteem could be detrimental to their growth.
Joining us now with some perspective on children and their image of themselves is Laura Smith. She's the author of "Hollow Kids." It's a book dealing with self-esteem. Dr. Smith, hello, glad you could come to talk with us.
LAURA SMITH, AUTHOR, "HOLLOW KIDS": Hi, Donna. Nice to be here.
KELLEY: Well, you know when we look at this shouldn't a kid feel good about themselves? And we've heard a lot of talk about, you know, if you concentrate on the positive, it's a good thing. And you should feel good about yourself?
SMITH: Well, we agree that kids should generally feel good about themselves, but too much self-esteem can lead to all sorts of problems that we never really realized before.
KELLEY: How do we know too much is too much? Where do you get that?
SMITH: Well sometimes we go about pumping up kids self-esteem for basically just breathing. We tell them that they're special for just being alive. And is really doesn't work out very well.
KELLEY: Why doesn't it? Because some people might say that's true. You know, you're a special person, you're one of a kind. But if you tell them, "Hey, you got up this morning, good job," that's not too good then because they're not accomplishing something or they don't feel like they've worked for something?
SMITH: That's right. And basing self-esteem on emptiness is like overfilling a balloon. It's -- if you think about overinflated balloon, it's pretty vulnerable to popping. And too much self-esteem can actually pop that balloon, leading to such things like violence, aggression, depression, anxiety.
KELLEY: You actually are in favor. And it was interesting to me in the book. You talked about the baby being able to learn to walk and how they just trot along. Can you tell us about that? And what you advocate really is acceptance. Explain that to us. SMITH: Sure. Acceptance is being able to do things in a self- forgetful way, not really saying, "I'm good because can I accomplish something," but I'm just a human being and accepting the positives and the negative parts of yourself.
KELLEY: Which means as you go along, like the baby example. What was that in the book?
SMITH: The baby example, well, we were looking at a child who's learning to walk. And as the child was learning to walk, he was falling over and getting up and falling over, and not really judging his walking. He was worst walker there.
KELLEY: But just having a good time trying to learn.
SMITH: Just having a good time trying to learn, that's right.
KELLEY: So as you go along with kids. Then what would you say? If you had -- if somebody's watching who has a child that they think maybe they've overdone it on the self-esteem and patting them on the back for empty things, what would you encourage them to do?
SMITH: Well, I would encourage parents to teach children the lessons they need to know. And then that is, learning how to how to tolerate frustration. OK? Kids need to learn how tolerate frustration. And they need to learn that by not giving into everything that they want. Teaching children to have self-control has been shown to be one of the crucial tasks of child hood. When we give kids everything they want and try to make them feel good all of the time, they can't learn those lessons.
KELLEY: Real quickly, because we're almost out of time, let's go through something that I found at the end of your book that I think is real good for children and adults, your keys to happiness that you talk about. You just hit on one of them, but let's pop through. Shall we?
SMITH: Sure.
KELLEY: And I'll start at the beginning, if we can, because we're kind of short of on time.
SMITH: OK.
KELLEY: Learn to forgive. And actually, you say that benefits the forgiver as much, because you don't get so self-absorbed.
SMITH: That's correct.
KELLEY: Gratitude, friendships, a healthy marriage and then religion and spirituality and then exercising self-control. What do those keys do for people?
SMITH: What they do is give you the ability to accept yourself as you are and to accept others as they are.
KELLEY: Dr. Laura Smith, author of "Hollow Kids." Nice to have you chat with us.
SMITH: Thank you.
KELLEY: Thanks.
SMITH: Bye-bye.
KELLEY: See you soon.
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